New-ish player feedback

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I have just over 2000 hours in NA, so I'm not entirely new to the combat system of NAL. I have played NAL for the last week and got to a Reno so far. Here's some feedback I'd like to share:

1. Interface and information delivery

While I understand that a tutorial is in the works, since I don't know what will be included in the tutorial, I figured I'd list my concerns here anyway.

The leveling system for both the captain and the officers is very unclear. I figured out that I do eventually gain levels and get more officers when my rank finally changed. Until it changed I had no clue when and if it was going to happen. It shouldn't be that hard to provide information on leveling, NA already does it fairly well.

Similar to above, it is very unclear what the red book represents. I was able to figure it out eventually, but interface should not be a puzzle for players to solve...

2. Ships and cannons progression

I am not a fan. I would much rather prefer ships to be unlocked by class. This will give players options to choose between ships according to their play styles. For example, while a brig can be an introductory ship to 6th rates, once a player gets enough experience in it, Snow, Navy Brig, and Mercury get unlocked. Those are somewhat balanced and provide good alternatives to each other depending on whether you want to tank, have more speed, or have an option to use heavier carronades. If you don't do that, you are taking what is so great about all of the ships available in the game and throw it away. Variety and choices are what makes players happy, rigid progression and grind make them quit and leave bad reviews...

As it is right now, the Snow is terrible. Part of that is due to the locked cannons of higher caliber (another part is that it is rated higher than other 6th rates even though it is very squishy and the game has no open world where Snow is actually valuable due to chasers and speed). That dooms new Snow captains to failure and makes little sense. Why can't I take the same 6pd-ers that I used on the Brig, Navy Brig, and Mercury, and use them on the Snow? Progression is great at keeping players engaged, but it should not force them to resign to failure and to grind, grind, grind until they can have an even chance in battle. I can outsail my enemies, but if I can't hurt them, my sailing prowess is useless. Give players the tools they need to be successful and let natural propensities, learning abilities, and persistence sort them into PvP gods and cannon fodder, there is no reason to force that issue.

3. Basic cutter

If that is the only fore and aft ship available and you are not going to add Privateer and Lynx to the game, you might as well take the Cutter out. It is never going to be a viable choice that players will go for and thus is only used to impose restrictions on players. It needs to be in a class with viable alternatives similar to the example with 6th rates above.

4. Upgrades/modules

There needs to be more of a variety in those - again, NA already does it very well. NAL is not giving me a lot of options to customize my ship. When I unlock all five slots, I can have a fighting ship that is slightly better than stock, or I can have a boarding ship. NA has a lot more options than that - Speed vs Tanky, Boarding, Turning overload, Indestructable masts... all coming with drawbacks, allowing for a much larger range of customization. Again, variety and choices make players happy, let us customize ships to a greater degree.

5. Bugs/features

So far I have had a rough time keeping my rudder out of yellow in a Mercury. Every second magical broadside from AI hits the rudder. One time I gently side swiped an AI ship and my rudder got damaged even though it never came into contact with that ship. Similarly, I've had a rough time with the pump on the Snow, somehow it gets hit very often.

I've had a few instances when I received a notice that I sank even though I did not. Once it happened completely out of the blue while I was not engaged in any boarding action and had plenty of HP and Structure left. In that battle I also got a notice that an enemy ship sank even though it did not, it won a boarding. The fake "sinking notification" after successful boarding seems to be a recurring issue.

Instead of a number I often have a line going through the icon where the number of loaded guns should be displayed. Not sure what that is...

Perhaps there should be a "fight AI only" option so that players don't have to wait 5 minutes when population is low to fight AI only battles. In the long term if the game succeeds and has high population, it can still serve as a training mode since battle instances close automatically and players can't practice maneuvers.

AI has shot through my ship on a few occasions. I first though that it was a bug and AI was doing some green on green damage, but I have seen this issue reported on these forums.

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I am a little disappointed that the Naval action game has more ships then Legends, i don't understand why they would not add them in at the same time, i also like your idea of classes but perhaps could have a tech tree that branches so Brig leads to the others which all in turn can get the next rate of ship up.